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Web Summit is considered one of the world's biggest technology events. This year Qatar hosted this enormous event in its capital city, Doha. Hundreds of international entrepreneurs, investors across different countries, industry celebrities, and government officials attended the event, which took place between 23-26 February.
Web Summit is considered one of the world's biggest technology events. This year Qatar hosted this enormous event in its capital city, Doha. Hundreds of international entrepreneurs, investors across different countries, industry celebrities, and government officials attended the event, which took place between 23-26 February.
As Techsign, we attended this event for the first time. It was a great opportunity to understand Qatar's startup ecosystem and market. And also we had a chance to meet many startups and create new connections.
In this article, I wanted to share with you the highlights of the event. I know money is tight, and choosing the on-target events is a huge stress for startups. I hope this article will be enlightening!
Qatar has a growing startup ecosystem. Qatar government supports large corporations to open branches in Qatar. As a result of this policy, there is a rapidly growing expat population alongside the local population. And this expat population demands new products and services. This newly created market, investments in technological infrastructure, and policies encouraging digitalization have created a favorable environment for the startup ecosystem. Additionally, Doha hosts many international events to retain its educated population, which plays a crucial role in creating the necessary cultural environment for the development of startups.
Lastly, the government has a very positive attitude towards startups. There are many different scaled funds for technology-based
startups.
You can click on this link to learn more about investment programs. https://startupqatar.qa/en
Unlike Dubai, Qatar has not fully turned its face to the global scene. It seems like Qatar has taken on the leading role of Gulf countries such as Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain, and Muslim countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh that want to become independent from India. The number of startups from these countries was quite high at the event. Moreover, it is worth noting that the companies with European-based headquarters have eastern country-origin founders. The entrepreneurs from these countries opened their companies in the European countries but try to do business in their origin region.
In this sense, Qatar may be a more popular market in the near future.
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If we can avoid the big fiasco on opening day, the event was pretty successful. On the opening day, as visitors, we waited in long lines to enter the venue. And then we were directed to another area, as it was said to have reached capacity. That was particularly disappointing for those who had traveled long distances. However, this unpleasant start was quickly forgotten, thanks to the intense and enjoyable days that followed.
The Doha Convention Center (DCC), which hosted the daytime portion of the event, was easily accessible, compact, and well-organized. The areas allocated to startups were sufficient, eye-catching, conducive to networking, and comfortable. The startup presentations, speakers, masterclasses, and mentor hours were enjoyable and beneficial. My only criticism is that there didn't seem to be a single investor present. Investors conducted short meetings in a designated area with startups they had invited, and from what I observed, no one was happy about it.
At night, the event continued with Night Summit events. These events are held in different tourist areas of Doha. In my opinion, distributing free four-day metro cards during registration and organizing the Night Summit in various parts of the city were effective methods for introducing the city to startups. However, it would be a big exaggeration to say that the nightlife in Doha is lively and interesting. The flawless, sparkling structure of the area known as the Old City was a bit disappointing for my taste.
I think I saw AI in every startup presentation I looked at! Yes, AI is the rising trend of our era, but does every system that is connected to ChatGPT become an AI? Can we call it machine learning after loading some data and not even observing the results? And do we really need artificial intelligence in all these areas? These are important question marks. And I have to admit that as a real AI company, we feel a little bit offended. I mean, we produce dozens, even hundreds of models, test them before implementation, and update these models with every fraud attack. AI and Machine learning is not an easy job. And we are suffering from the weariness that comes with hearing about AI.
We attended the VivaTech 23 event as guests of the Turkey Investment Office, but due to organizational hitches, we couldn't achieve the interaction we desired. Considering this experience, we attended Web Summit individually, but we saw that the Turkey team had a much better experience this time. 20 startups from Turkey participated in the event as exhibitors, and more Turkish companies attended as visitors. I believe and hope that the relationship between Qatar and Turkey will create positive results for both corporate companies and startups in the future.
At the reception held at the Qatar Embassy, positive relations between the two countries were emphasized, and the ambassador expressed their support for the startups.
For now, Web Summit Qatar seems to have been productive for Techsign. I believe we have taken meaningful steps to enter the Qatari market, where digitalization is progressing slowly but steadily, and we have made important connections. In 2025, we may prefer to participate as visitors rather than exhibitors. I think we are a bit larger in scale compared to other startups. However, the event is truly startup-friendly with its affordable price, quality speeches, and atmosphere it offers. Considering these, I especially recommend that early-stage startups participate in this event, at least once.
